[Don Jones]

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[Maryann Corbett]

While this doesn't directly address the question about power, it does include some assorted views on Vendler generally:A discussion from a few months back

There are probably some others to be found. I've certainly heard it said, with disapproval, that she has too much to do with the present status of Ashberry and Olds.

[Quincy Lehr]

To sort of answer Don's question though, I'd have to say that while Vendler's influence is certainly vast (and her tastes in contemporary poetry rarely coincide with mine), she'll be dead soon--having been born in 1933. (That toad Bloom, being born in 1930's older still, as is Marjorie Perloff, born in 1931.) A cruel observation? Perhaps, but I'm rather more interested in what comes next than what will be off the scene rather soon. Vendler has, frankly, probably made her major discoveries for better or worse, and I'd be rather more interested in the question of whether there are any professor-critics of the status of Bloom, Vendler, or Perloff waiting in the wings. I certainly can't think of any off the top of my head.

[Don Jones]

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[Adam Elgar]

For my part, Don, I'm never going to mind people telling it how they see it. No one's insulted by your views as far as I can see.

I agree with you about HV's reading of the Sonnets. I found it a revelation.

[R. S. Gwynn]

I rather liked Vendler's book on the sonnets, though I wouldn't take her as the last word on them.

Her taste in living poets is suspect, though. I don't think I've ever agreed with her on the poets she's championed, and I really turned her off after Dave Smith (the Bard of Fustian) and that young woman who was her colleague at Harvard (not Jorie Graham) whose name I can't recall right now.

I do think that the Graham boosting was a matter of Vendler being "glammed" by a younger poet. I've always thought that Vendler was somewhat "star-struck" by poets.

[Andrew Frisardi]

Originally Posted by R. S. Gwynn

. . . and that young woman who was her colleague at Harvard (not Jorie Graham) whose name I can't recall right now.

Lucie Brock-Broido (sp?).

I do think that the Graham boosting was a matter of Vendler being "glammed" by a younger poet. I've always thought that Vendler was somewhat "star-struck" by poets.

I think this is key. And especially poets with big hair: Graham and Brock-Broido. (Tony Hoagland wrote a poem about them, "Big Hair," or was it David Lehman?)

I have almost no interest in criticism about modern poets that is not written by poets. But hey, that's me.

It isn't Helen Vendler's opinions about Heaney or anyone else that is the problem; it's the Harvard-Yale juggernaut--what they say rules. She is entitled to her opinion, as is Bloom, but because of their status and position their influence is blown way out of proportion to the value of what they say.

[Don Jones]

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